his development as a writer. so he thought there were was some value in it and in the seventies and 80s he began to break ranks with the liberal new york establishments, and so growing up i had in him a very powerful example of somebody who is independent and not afraid to challenge the reigning consent or whatever it was. although i would have to say he was misunderstood as a conventional right-winger. there still is a difference. anyway i hope that answers your question. >> we have been talking with adam bellow and bill strachan of harpercollins publishers about some other upcoming titles. gentlemen, thank you arcos the next, matthew briones reports on

charles kikuchi. following the bombing of pearl harbor in 1941. mr. kikuchi kept a journal throughout his life and recalls his time in the camp, his enlistment in the u.s. army and his career later as a social worker in new york city. mr. briones is joined by cornel west in this hour and a half long talk in new york city. >> thank you so much to hue-man bookstore for having us. it's a real honor and humbling for me to be here. i know who you are really here for and i am sure that c-span viewers will be waiting until -- i wanted to talk a little bit about the new book right now called "jim and jap crow" and a very interesting sort of figure who writes every day from pearl

harbor from 1941 all the way to his passing away in 1988. there is a first edition of a diary the diary in 1973. a remarkable japanese-american who was incarcerated. the interesting story -- his narrative, his story, he basically moves from san francisco down to arizona where he is incarcerated in an internment camp and then relocates to chicago as part of this physiological study and moves here to new york. the next 15 years of his life, 25 years of his life, actually it's even longer than that. i am thinking of how long he was in his job, but it was actually 40 years here in new york city.

but, he had a very particular view on america in 1940 in the sense that for him, as much as japanese americans were oppressed and had the title jap crow. he was very much interested in the plight of african-americans in the sense that when he was a young boy he was orphaned by his parents for about 10 years. he grew up in a multi-ration -- he was always very comfortable in a multiracial environment. he joined a gang later on in his life and for him his philosophy was very much that yes, we are behind barbed wire but for him, the key to american democracy

was finding a quality and democracy and the true fulfillment of democracy for african-americans and in a strange way, turning on his head the idea of a model minority of japanese americans looking towards african-americans in saying, we are oppressing this country. how can we get by? who do we follow? pcs very often in this writing the different narrative and again from the east coast to the west coast about his interaction with various african-americans. everyday african-americans on the southside of chicago. here he actually was married to a wonderful dancer. they would often come up to harlem and there are a few spots where he talks about eating at

ruth james apartment and duke ellington sisters of there are these wonderful moments where you see his interaction and he interacts with native americans. he was a migratory farm labor in california so again he yet this great exposure and anyway you know, much like in historical context de tocqueville. he sees all of america and it's his narrative that becomes the story or at least the baseline of the nrda from a history which is actually about other like-minded people who are trying to think about what does it mean in the midst of war right after the war in terms of democrats in america? what is it mean to be a multiracial american? so you can see this story is quite unique in many ways but i

also want to make the point that he was also representative of an lot of folks. so it wasn't a difference of time. it was a difference of degree with other japanese americans and other americans and latinos etc.. but throughout his life particularly because he was an orphan, there was this your name for it being a part of a family. he does rejoin his family when they are all incarcerated which is an amazing thing when you think about it. parents would go and see him personally when he was in the orphanage. they would send their lawyer so think about reconnecting with your son after so many years behind barbed wire and he made a go at it with that family. but it wasn't until he married his wife and had two wonderful children, susan and lauren, that he really found the family of his dreams.

but thinking more largely he was always trying to think about the pieces of the mac and family that were a most abused. so this was his most are succeeded member of the family and not to take away -- but to recognize them and say look to other japanese americans, it's really possible for us to form these inter-racial alliances and not drive a wedge between us and not have the structures that say look at these model minorities and look at these asian-americans who are quiet, submissive and got good grades in school. african-american latinos and native americans like that model minority. why do you have to be a protest minority so he was fighting against that sort of what i think has become some of the common sense about asian-americans and african-american interactions

today. thinking about the 20th anniversary of the l.a. uprising in a lot of ways that is what influenced me to write this is that most people sort of assumed african-americans in l.a. say they don't get along and i never got along and they never will get along but i wanted to write an alternative history or at least a revised history that shows there were these relationships. my sister married and african-american man. this was not isolated. these were not just a few people who interacted with african-americans. it was much more, it was a larger movement. maybe i will stop there and maybe have professor west to ask me some questions.

open up more to you and ask more about sort of modern day jim crow and jap crow, thinking about michele alexander's great book on jim crow's incarceration but even in some ways the kind of jap crow that goes on today. may be oriole it does for the nypd to trying these undercover stings against muslim americans and muslim students. that is another kind of oppressive system, oppressive practice where there is overlap between african-americans and asian-americans and where can we go from that overlap and where can we go from that kind of alliance? [applause] >> it let me first say i am

always blessed to be in harlem and especially blessed to be it hue-man bookstore. let's give her a hand. [applause] i want to thank each and everyone of you for coming out this evening and this is very much going to be a conversation that we want to dialogue with you, especially as it relates to the ways in which the legacy of white supremacy has affect the different people, be it indigenous people, be at latinos, the asian brothers and sisters. it can be black people and what i love about my dear brother matt briones's tax it is one of the first text to make the explicit connection between two forms of american terrorism, jim crow and jap crow.

let me just say as a footnote that to be a will to sit here with matt is a delight because we go back now almost 15 years. i first met him when he was a student at harvard. he was at the top of his class. i asked him very humbly if he would teach with me and he was my head teaching fellow at harvard when i had a bit class of 700. we had to move from the university to the catholic church at that time when larry summers tried to cut the class in half because he didn't want me to have the most popular class. we just moved off campus through the kindness of a priest there. matt was there year after year. you didn't come to princeton. utah with dr. how he tailored. his wonderful family, sister eliza, his wife and he has a daughter named fellow west. that west comes from brother

wes. i am deeply touched, deeply touch. let's zero in just very briefly on the two forms of american terrorism because that is what jim crow was and that is what jap crow was. we no jim crow was about 1895. people at already been enslaved. we are going to tom and ties them and we are going to stigmatize them and we are going to make them forever fearful feeling scared and intimidated and therefore make it there -- very difficult for we to love ourselves, respect ourselves, confirm ourselves, come together and resist. that is what american terrorism was between 1895 up until 1965 and i must say i was just in court all day today because as you well know we got stop and frisk in new york city. this is the third day we were in court wrestling with this issue of an attempt to terrorize our young people. 700,000 of them stopped and frisked.

10% found with anything on them, 1% arrested. so what do you do? humiliate them. what you do? terrorize, traumatized and stigmatize them there is a sense in which jim crow jr. is still operating and is tied to the new jim crow and dust in dust or complex in that regard. so when brother. matt: briones says i want him make the between jim crow and jane crow -- that includes the black sisters. not just targeting the lack man, the black woman was very much part of the strategy of the government. >> jap crow executive order 9066. 1942, the liberal president, franklin delano roosevelt,

signed the order to do what? terrorize, traumatize, stigmatize japanese brothers and sisters as a result of the -- we didn't use and moment of emergency. that becomes a moment in which we always know when those moments dissent is the second casualty and the third is who will be left to stand up and say something about those who are suffering from this terror and this trauma? very interesting du bois used to write a column in the magazine called as the crow flies. talking about jim crow and brother matt makes this point with great power. when norman thomas a princeton graduate, theological seminary graduate, ex-presbyterian minister, when he wrote a letter

to fdr, saying that we protest executive order 9066, concentration camp encampment, japanese brothers and sisters. no matter how real they were, some of them had fought in the war and fought in the army. they were still taken out, property confiscated, families broken up, 10 different slots, 10 different parts of the west coast and arizona. wp dubois was the only black later who signed that letter in defense of the japanese brothers and sisters. all the other black leaders were to be patriotic, wanted to go with the mainstream which was to say scared, intimidated and didn't want to cut against the grain and dubois himself did what? stigmatized. he is the kind of rather who would tell the truth.

he says i'm going with my japanese brothers and sisters because i know i will be demonized and stigmatized because i'm going to bear witness to the suffering which is unjustified and unwarranted of my japanese brothers and sisters. today people look back, oh they shouldn't have done that. fdr had a blind spot on his administration. can this really happen in america, this kind of terrorism in america? ginman jane crow was happening all the time. and the connection of what was happening was the peak of the iceberg and a whole host of brothers and sisters who are dealing with these arbitrary police power, arbitrary powers of court, arbitrary executive

power. it gives the president to detain or murder or assassinate u.s. citizens with no judicial process whatsoever. they defined it as being hostile to the interest of the country. wahabi define? melson meant -- nelson mandela was assigned as a terrorist in the 1960's, seventies and 80s and those of us who are with nelson mandela were supporting the terrorists which meant we could read detained for no trial or assassinated or murdered with no trial whatsoever. so when we are talking about american terrorism which is arbitrary use of state power for allowing the arbitrary use of power in fellow citizens with the state not intervening such as trayvon martin was. it was a fellow citizen but it took the court how long?

45, 46, 47 days to kick in. that is arbitrary police power in terms of not being committed to justice. why? because the value of a black life is the same as any other life -- [inaudible] that is what it means and what is magnificent in this text is you actually get courageous visionary japanese thinkers and leaders who build riches with visionary, courageous black thinkers, inter-racial alliance. and making the connection between not just the legacy of white supremacy but all of those who clash. fundamentally concerned with the relationship between economic injustice and racism against japanese and black mothers and

sisters and doing it in such a way he was still committed to democracy but then -- but not the narrow truncated to evacuate a conception of democracy in the mainstream. what i mean by that is, for the japanese what does democracy mean under fdr if you are in an encampment? talk about how magnificent fdr was? until the cows come home but if you had and rounded up, you are being treated as if you were living in a crypto fascist state. the same was true of jim crow and jane crow. democracy might be fleur singh on the vanilla side of town but it still has class problems and still has economic adjustments. you can talk about democracy all you want but i'm still not in. fearful of the lynch mob. i am dealing with segregated

conditions and circumstances you see so as you can imagine talking about fellow sisters, i am anti-american. no, no, no. is anti-injustice in america. it's not anti-american at all. charles kikuchi had a profound commitment to democracy in america. he just had a high sensitivity to the injustices in america too. and the challenge is always, how to keep both of those ideas in your heart and mind and soul at the same time, and we know dubois had that wonderful vision he wrote that column from here to yonder. also fascinating artistic satirical stories about blacks and asians and how they had an

alliance against a narrow democratic order in place at the time. there is another magnificent relation with a towering figure and we often forget his name, howard thurman. howard thurman was the founder of the first inter-racial, intercoastal church in america in san francisco. it was a white brother named alford fisk, a very good friend of charles kikuchi on the west coast and that connection is one in which we need to know more about especially in these days and times if we are really serious about democracy. cohesive economic injustice, cohesive legacy of racism and white supremacy and i will stop. kikuchi, he believed in individuality without believing in narrow individualism and by individuality what i mean is

very much what black people mean when we sing the national anthem. lift every voice. lift every echo, lift every voice. it takes courage to echo other people and it takes courage to find your voice. the great performer created in america was the symbolic democratic art called jazz. if you are just echoing, john coltrane is going to echo the saxophone and duke ellington -- he told him find your voice. miles davis said find your voice, john. individuality. that is different than narrow consensus and charles kikuchi had a profound commitment to

individuality. the second generation japanese. he had to find his voice. first-generation, a suspicion of things the american and second generation they become over americanized and lose sight of the riches of the japanese tradition. how do you find your voice so you understand the richest of what the japanese have to bring to america and at the same time negotiate and navigate on the american terrain. and to be able to turn a to a model of the black people who in the face of jim crow at our best, every black person, we have a history of black thugs and gangsters and everything else, black echoes across the board but we have a rich history of black freedom fighters and black lovers of justice and a connection between the japanese level of justice and the black

levels of justice like dubois and howard thurman written so well in this text. i want to recommend -- something to live within russell with because we don't know if enough about the history of the way in which black peoples and yellow peoples are intertwined. we had that wonderful moment of malcolm x's. >> a harlow might for 35 years. >> she is like white on rice in terms of the connection, intellectual, political. very few people know about that connection. that is my wife. i love her to death than those precious daughters. yuri and i are in deep conversation as well.

why? because we are freedom fighters. our mind, heart and soul. i am sure many of you know -- i recommend her autobiography. very much so, very much so. my first question to you would be though, in some ways it's the story of triumph because it takes place, the line stick take place but then it crumbles. how do you account for the crumbling? >> yeah. it's a complicated answer and i think that in some ways it's something that is a legacy, it's a legacy of failure that we still have to deal with today and i guess that is why in some ways i brought it up 92 and the uprising.

even though in the sense both communities, they really worked very hard after the uprising to reconcile and talk to one another. seeing you know the town was completely abandoned and there is the incredible picture of a korean-american gunmen with a t-shirt of malcolm at his window with his rifle, this moment of violence and artists like and that the fear smith and her wonderful play twilight, really tries to sort of men that wound, the deep, deep wound in american history. this wedge issue and you probably see it with the jewish-american brothers and sisters in the sense of you

know, at one point african-american, the jewish-american seeing each other as underdogs and being able to be in certain alliances, up to and through the civil rights movement, maybe up to affirmative action and the different history it plays and asian-americans and i am speaking monolithically and very generalized, you know the ideas that we coined the phrase in 1966 of the model minority. it's a very conscious choice to say this is the model minority. you know all you have to do in america is pull yourself up from your bootstraps, study and you know you will make it, right? akin to schooled african-americans, too schooled native americans. and it's a really false sense of security. i had some students a couple of weeks ago -- we were talking about the next germany lin and it was a very hard event to talk about.

they really just wanted to talk about how jeremy lin had done so well and how there was this great story and cornel and i know the cinderella story is not asian american but the cinderella story is that the harvard graduate makes it into the mba. they couldn't grasp you know this sort of notion about when jeremy lin had these racial epitaph thrown at him. is this a chance to talk about race? is this a chance to talk about -- if you are saying germany lin got there because you was a hard worker and what does that mean about derek rose and? does he not work hard? is a just natural talent? so we tried to have this conversation but so many of these young people, and they are 18, 19-year-old kids have bought into this model minority

second-generation immigrant type of narrative that you know, if i can distance myself from african-americans, whiteness becomes the norm and that is something i will strive towards an something i try to do in my teaching is try to at least recalibrate that you know, folks are seeing that particularly among asian-americans, i mean it's only very recently asian-americans consider themselves one type of political group that particularly dark darker asians like filipinos, mung, cambodian, laotians. they are racialized i think in a very different way than the japanese, chinese and korean americans are go okinawans are darker and seen a certain way etc. but reticular leg -- so it's been here since the empire started in 1898 and we

still haven't gotten far. we haven't done too much. we are not any kind of model minority and my argument is to my students, you know, how do you see this sort of common ground that you know, filipinos in daly city find with african-americans or samoans in san diego? ..

and what makes it such that there are these wonderful alliances, too. so, i mean, i think my default answer is this notion of the wedge being driven, you know, asian-americans being on the cover of "time" magazine in 1986, whiz kids. it's not even on spoken, but kind of acknowledgement that okay, asians are going to do well in math and science, etc. and they're going to make it. you have ucla filled with asian-americans. but, you know, there are still asian-american brothers and sisters who are standing on the steps of the supreme court when michigan goes to court for affirmative action and grass verses bollinger in 2003, and

again, i ask why, you know, if it's not going to benefit asian-americans' why would they want to, you know, agitate for affirmative action, which has benefited actually, right, in the past 40 years. and those folks who are standing next to african-americans, latinos and native america, etc., and white allies etc., you know, the bill be on higher education there is a bamboo feeling. secure in new york how many ceos to be no better asian-american or african-american for that matter, right? so to keep pushing for justice, whether it affects one or not, is something i still see and i still hopeful about it if we don't have cornell around i'm not hopeful. if i don't have my daughters and cornell, i'm not hopeful. i'm very cynical about the idea because one also knows that, you know, you have heard marion berry's comments in the past

couple of weeks -- there are tensions in these communities and i don't want to romanticize them. asian-americans are just this racist as anybody else. they are also as prejudice against one another as anybody else. when i was writing this, my parents were horrified at first. it is a wire you writing about a japanese-american? we are filipino. my mother's family basically had been lined up during world war ii, and all of them had been shot in monona. my mother had to wrestle with why was i focusing on this particular group. so you could see that the wounds were deep and the sort of history was still there, and to be able to tell my mother japanese-americans are not the same as filipino americans aren't the same as, you know, so just being able to have this kind of conversation it's a small one. and i like to kind of make it bigger, more inclusive.

>> that's a wonderful the answer. i think it's important to keep in mind that it was in "the new york times" magazine that the notion of asians as modeled minority was written in direct response and the watch for berry, 1965. what was saying was look, these negro's are out of control. rebellion, righteous a indignation, challenged the status quo. we have a model minority that is koln, serbian, and the exact opposite. in many ways was a lie because one, you say asian what are you talking about? you got to disaggregate the category. filipinos, given the chinese, indians, i'm not talking about marion, that's from asia, too but america you get this

monolithic characterization. asians as a whole. and what they were saying was asian-americans, if you'll want to be included in the mainstream , the last thing you want to do is be associated with, not just these black people, but the ones that have righteous indignation. i didn't say rage, i said righteous indignation. they have some critiques of an unjust status quo and they became upset about it. that's different than rage because it is not so what is what righteous indignation is like jesus in the temple when he gets to jerusalem. state for the temple. to transform this house of prayer into a den of thieves. that's righteous indignation. and the juxtaposition of asians especially in 1865 affects us as

something that is actually wrestled with and critique in a powerful way. but charles kikuchi back then associated with the filipinos. he associated with black people, explicitly. you know what it's like for a japanese to is the secret black folk? you know what it's like for any non-black folk to associate with black folk? [laughter] it's like going back to the back of the jim-crow bus. as soon as i get there and going back with jaml and latisha. how many did that? not too many. until kikuchi, he's the kind of japanese brother he would go to the back. well, what's the problem? you don't have to go back there. no, i want to be back there. and the thing to keep in mind is this: i gave a presentation at a gathering of asian americans, and i was debating a new conservative, there was a white

brother, and his argument was you asians are the opposing affirmative action because it's in your interest to do so. and my argument was if you take seriously the legacy of martin luther king, jr., then life isn't just about interest, it's about principle. it doesn't take anybody to come and tell you what your interests are. the challenge in life is what kind of principles you are going to follow. sometimes your principles cut against your interest. it might be in my interest as a male to put the sister down, but that's just, that lacks moral substance. i'm siding with the women because it's wrong. when the brothers are treating them wrong. nobody needs to tell me what my interests are. i know what my interests are. i need to be challenged a moral and spiritual level. what vision do i have? what principles to i have? what kind of integrity do i have? that's the question.

in the last year, 40 years, people have been told just pursue your interest. that's it. how empty, palmeiro. of course, we have interest, but we have more than just interest. we have a sense of morality. we've got a sense of spirituality. a sense of integrity. a sense of magnanimity, preakness -- greatness of character. asians and african-americans who have a sense of integrity coming together but in that going against much in their own communities as well as against the powers that be in america. definitely. >> another moment i don't know if it is something we can sort of bring to a contemporary moment. you know, particularly with professor west being down at the courthouse fighting this stopping of -- its 87% of the young people spot of color --

>> black and brown. >> whereas it is only 53% of the city, and as you were saying, 10% actually having any against them, and 1% -- you know, this moment of one of a comedic kind of tale because there are two stories going on at the time of the asian-americans, and one was about jeremy linda basketball player and with omar and a great story. we will celebrate that but we also need to talk about something else, which is the other story in the times beneath told is this service cited a chinese-american from chinatown, private danny chin who had been bullied in the army in his army unit, and eight men i believe have been court-martialed for it and they were using the kind of racial epithets we would expect if you were cussing out and asian-american.

and the trayvon case, it's important for me to keep on remembering we had a lovely men of color forum at the university of chicago and one of the law students said i'm afraid that in all of the sensation we are losing the humanity of trayvon martin, and i just thought that was an incredible comment. and it does remind us -- it does remind us of emmett till and between those moments, the sort of courage to have that open. and there is a sort of mid point which the anniversary's coming up also, the 30th anniversary of a man named vincent chin, a man of detroit who was brutally murdered in 1982 because the autoworkers thought he was japanese, and because the japanese auto industry was putting, quote on quote, an amount of work. they had an argument and a strip club.

this was vincent chin's bachelor party. words were exchanged. these two men, a man and his stepson, two white men chased him down the street, get a baseball bat out of their car and beat him until his brain is on the ground. these two men even with a civil rights case don't spend a day in jail. it's a 3,000-dollar fine, and, you know, no time in jail. the interviewed these men and they're the victims, of course, of the media, et cetera. so for the first time asian-americans' politicize and to become a particular group. but, you know, i wanted to highlight the the mother in that story, lilly chin goes around the country speaking in broken english but trying to raise awareness of what happened to her son. and i think similar ways that

maimi has this courage to expose her son to the media and 55. but also now to have the parents of trayvon martin exposes this. and i guess i'm saying, you know, these are all stories we should know and the sense that it's a shared history that we like to repress and our psyche. but particularly for me in teaching young people, you know, that some of them even haven't heard of the japanese-american concentration camps or some of them, when i was teaching at michigan, haven't even heard of vincent chin, which happened only 40 minutes away. so, to know about these common share histories -- not to level them to say african-americans slavery is the same as the japanese-american concentration camps, not at all -- but to see that there is much more that brings us together than drives us apart, right? >> when we think of the dignity

and the magnanimity of trayvon's mother and father, you see both of them on television? haven't heard one call for revenge, just justice. you haven't heard of one expression of hatred or bigotry, just justice. maimi till, the same we come lilly chin, the same way. that's the best of the country. that's the best of the country. in the face of terrorism, in the face of trauma, in the face of stigma, like frederick douglass, like i'd be wells, like a philip randolph, like martin king and frannie lillehammer, they talk about justice and not revenge. talking about spreading love, not spreading the heat. that takes courage. profound courage. spiritual, sophistication. like a servon, spiritual

sophistication that comes from the soul of love and discipline, a technique and craft and also humility because timothy is the benchmark of maturity. in the same way arrogance is a benchmark of immaturity. the arrogance of racism is always a sign that you are dealing with spiritual the amateur backward folks pitch. humility, you are dealing with something deep. that's what you see in the parents of trayvon martin. there are thousands and thousands of men that the parents like that. we don't even get a chance to get stories about them. in this text you will get a story of an asian brother who exemplifies this and connect him with the mother of vincent chin and so many others spiritual asian brothers and sisters. >> definitely. >> and evin -- just one last

point because i've got to go on trial for this case it's like looking in the eyes of the judge. when you say if your child was the victim of stop and frisk on the banal side of town it's wrong. i'd still be here. if 80% of all white brothers and sisters were stopped and frisked him it's wrong. you've still got to fight it. it's a matter of morality. but the fact that it's black and brown gives them a legacy of white supremacy in the history of this nation, connects the two, jim crow, connects the two, slavery, connect the two, not getting value to the lives of our precious young people, no matter what color disproportionately black and brown. it is the position we are talking about that brings all of us together, no matter what

color you are. it is a matter of morality and integrity and dignity connected to the parents of these precious young folk we are talking about. i know that you'll have questions and inquiries. professor briones is ready for you and me too. >> it's a given that we have to strive for the best but how do you overcome racism when it so intrinsic to the culture? i mean, obviously we can't have jim-crow, but you can't legislate attitudes, so how do you get rid of something that is the culture? i mean, people feel like in america they can't speak english but they know disrespecting me as a black person that makes them feel better, it's the culture, how do you get around

that? >> it's a profound question. [laughter] >> o lord, that is -- mabey this is in some ways a try the answer but it's the only thing i can do which is to say educate. in the sense that i know the sense of privilege that i have to have, you know, to be able to go to graduate school and teach kids to go to harvard or one of my former michigan students came and visited today and once we get him to teach at the university of michigan and the university of chicago. these folks are going to be the leaders, quote on quote, of whenever this. yes i question every day and by helping to reproduce an elite that's just going to go off and become that one per cent that's raping everybody. but if i can start to reach some of those students so that that

lesson trickles down in some ways, not trickles down, that is a bad connotation, but at least it stays with them, even to have a filipino american at the classroom instead of seeing me in a history book with a grass skirt and a pygmy next to president william mckinley, that's how i grew up. i saw myself in a history book, and i didn't like it. that stayed with me from when i was in fourth grade until now and trying to teach my daughter's trying to figure out how cornell fits in her life that yes name with it but she thinks she was named first in other words. but even -- i mean, again, this might sound too romantic, but even to bring kids into this world is very hopeful.

so the notion that my wife and i can have these multiracial children, that's even another kind of example. but there are days we want the state to hawaii because we know that more kids look like my kids than anywhere else. as opposed to hyde park. might feel more comfortable on the south side and i would in hyde park. i don't think i have the experience to answer that question as well as cornell. >> it's a deep question. henry highland a great speech in 1987. the first negro's came together in public discourse and he said never confuse the situation of black people in america with those of the individualized estimate for us farrell's on both sides of the bloody red sea. and i could imagine at that point somebody sing a song please. [laughter] just left the voice and sing a song. keep on pushing.

keep on moving. somehow in the face of all this darkness, we've got to keep loving, got to keep fighting for justice. and if we are religious the way i am, i bear witness with the grace so i get help. but i also know the darkness is very real. that's why it is a profound question. he didn't say give up or sell your soul. he didn't say cave in. he just said you might think you are in the promised land, but if you look closely, you have another faeroe. that is what happened to black folk after slavery, to the injured 44 years of slavery, here comes the name jim crow. then you move from jim crow, senior in this out to jim crow in the north moving you down. not legally is but it's still jim crow to read where you live, lining up banks and so forth. what do black people do? be careful don't push a.

we are blues people. we look eight catastrophe street in the face and say like b.b. king i've got style, i've got a smile, i forgot love in my soul and i'm not going to allow those folks to steal it from me, but i'm not as free as i want to be. [laughter] i'm going to sing a song nobody loves me like my mom and she might be jiving, too. it's very hopeful in the way he says it. >> the challenge right now is we have a younger generation who is more and more either selling too much of their soul for anybody up for sale so all they want is just the benjamins, all they want is just money. your grandmother is weeping from the grave, she wants you to be great, she doesn't want you to be just financially successful. she wants you to learn how to love and fight for justice and

the courageous and in a man and a woman don't just tell us how well you are doing with your money. that is true for the society as a whole but we are losing that with the folks across the board. that is why the question is a frightening question, because in the end, believe me. if we start selling our soul across the board, we have always been the prophetic democratic and america to allow that to expand for everybody. but it goes stale if the tradition goes dead. this is part of the struggle in the age of obama because you end up with a black president and we all celebrate this, so forth and so on. but the litmus test is always how much courage do you have to tell the truth about the suffering of people? it doesn't say anything but poverty or the prisoner industrial complex or anything about the homes lost that wall street gets bailed out what's going on?

what's happening here? we've got to put pressure on. tell him the truth. the wonderful thing that there is an awakening taking place i know is it not just during the occupied movement, but we were done in south carolina state university, one of the institutions of our learning going on a black tour every year on the college is just to be in contact with the young black folk in the college because you can make black folk and other places, too but i'd like to go down south. something about the south. south carolina. [laughter] mississippi, the only competitor. [laughter] thomas we think it is a challenge and so forth. you come from mississippi, south carolina. you've been so fundamentally

niggerized through every nook and cranny of your being committed in south carolina, here come james brown, that's where they come from hiding in the face of terror coming in the face of trauma and stigma, standing at all. you do that in south carolina, that's serious business. i was down there with tavis smiley on the poverty tour coming and i tell you it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. [phone ringing] that's him calling me right now. tell it brother, tell it. [laughter] i'm just kidding. go ahead. >> [inaudible]

spread out so everybody knows that after awhile it will die out. but, like i haven't seen. it's random people dying in the news but [inaudible] is that necessary to reach other people at this point? [inaudible] >> another deep question. i believe that it is the blood of the markers that fertilizes the soil of freedom because, and this is what we are trying to do in stopping the case. what we said was we love young

people coming and we love you enough to get you arrested and to go to jail, and we love you enough to die for you. savitt isn't just the martyrdom, it is the love that is manifest that leads to martyrdom. see what i mean? but you have to establish it as a love act because we know that it gathers. the death of martin king, the death of malcolm x. the events in and of themselves are love the defense. they had to say my god, they loved us enough to die for us. in my own life people would say only mother would do that. or daddy or grand mother. they loved us enough to die for us? that serious business. there's always been the black people that would die for black people. because you know if you loved black people deeply, there's a very good chance you're going to die. [laughter]

these are the fact. if they suffer so badly, you've got to do something. used to get up in the morning loving black people. whether or not the black brother loved people and enough, he was willing to die. black people knew that. they wouldn't agree with him politically but what did they say? there goes somebody that sacrificed somebody. that's very serious. the flip side of course are the bbs. so many of the slavery directions resulted from the death of a baby. that's why it became unlawful for black people, for us to bury the dead. this the worst you could do to any people. the cheapest form of dehumanization, that's what they did with the jewish brothers and sisters. we have to raise questions about yourself. when you raise questions about

yourself the start bearing all of these sleeve babies they said, you know what, we aren't putting up with this. this is 5-years-old we're going to fight. we wouldn't allow them to have funerals' anymore. the these are precious, innocent and pristine. it makes folks straighten their backs. it's like going to your grandmother's funeral. you are a different person when you put your mom, dad, the granddaddy in the grave. you are different. you will never be the same because it raises questions about yourself or your best partner or your son and daughter. so the martyrdom has to do with love. that's not just a song. love lifted me. that wasn't a theological

statement, that was a life lived somebody loves you you learn to love and a sense justice is what looks like in public once you start really loving you are going to be a justice seeker, you're going to be a fighter for justice and what i know wells wrote in her wonderful biography called a crusader for justice because i love the people being ready to be demonized because they're the wonderful song with another genius called love is a threat. when you really love folks and they're not ready for is a threat. individual people themselves or even the nation. i'm sorry to go on so long but the issue of martyrdom is very important. we don't need black leaders, we don't need leaders at all.

they showed the glove in terms of example. that's the only way you break the cycle of people feeling that we are not making any progress moving forward and so forth. that is what we had in the 60's. we had folks who left us. whether you agree with them or not you know they're trying to tell the truth as they understood it and to tell the truth they wanted to die. how many politicians tell the truth? please, very few. stat we even had some japanese-american participants in the black panther party, richard and these guys were really ready to die in that

moment. the sacrifice on behalf of the people i was thinking again of the beginning of the empire and philippine american war where there were african-american soldiers written about in the book smoke yankees and there was a soldier who's been written about a lot, too but they go over to the philippines and they see that these people look more like them than the officers or the soldiers that they are fighting. they go awol and they say i'm not going to take these brown and yellow people and you can trace the interracial marriages that took place but those guys are willing to be court-martialed or probably executed. it starts way before that but, you know, the water torture in the philippines and in iraq. so there is this long sword

history of sacrifice. when you said martyred, this is a little side not history of the philippines right now the president's son of a man that is a martyr, his father went back from boston, was persecuted by marcos, goes back and says i need to see my people and as soon as he is getting off the plane, he is shot in the back of the head and literally his blood is spilled on the tarmac and that airport now is named after him. his wife goes on to lead a revolution with thankfully the help of a church and the military. but to this day the legacy of the american empire and philippines are quite correct, etc. but there is some hope you see the sun that's there and is trying to do right there so much corruption to try to get the

dictator around. that's what i thought of as a boy growing up that's what i thought of as a family friend thinking my god, he just got shot on television. >> i grew up in the state of malibu [inaudible] somebody by the segregated education mandate segregated education for the better half of the last century trying to teach new york city and every day that i teach becomes a fight, about

all to tell them and to make them understand that you are somebody. you are capable of being a brilliant. because nothing on tv, little in the movie drives the point home and if you look at the daily publication and when i read my news letters every month the thing that i remember most is to have a review of some children's literature and seldom does anybody talk about the children who are in the majority there and new york city. my question, afterwards, thank you very much for that notion where my oldest brother was at one time president. >> i'm scared. i'm afraid because i don't think that a person walks around have

educated not knowing who he or she happens to be can be a law-abiding citizen. my question to both of you, how do i teach the children before i am consumed and swallowed by this ugliness that exists in practically every school that i know about here. >> it's very much a part of it. >> it starts in the home. the majority of a child waking hours. estimate they have no choice, they have to go there something [inaudible] what do i do before it consumes

clouds another? >> something tells me give it your strength, fortitude and determination. nothing stopping you now. the thing is we are losing so many precious young folks. it's a combination of home, community, workplace, mass media coming and we used to be able to go to our churches and get some deep spiritual body that has been so commercialized, modified, you go to some of these churches and see the atms -- [laughter] it turns into kool-aid. we have some churches i know first corinthians is strong. the brother malcolm come anybody know his name? michael warren. so many of them have been modified. so it is the question of where we go?

in home, in schools talking about portraying young folks for the workplace you must respect yourself have confidence in yourself, believe in yourself, you come from a great tradition, a great heritage and people in the midst of a crisis generated all but its courage and vision and so forth. a lot of these newsletters and newspapers can't tell them that we have to do it ourselves at home, church, our muslim brothers and sisters can play a role. synagogues, jewish, black, white, whatever. we have to be honest. and we have to say that we live in a society that has more priorities we can find money for drones to kill innocent folks with sticks in virginia, unmanned aerial.

do you know how much money it takes to do that? , geneina energy you have to invest but we can't have a priority of making sure our children are safe. making sure that there's enough jobs in the communities of the underground economy of guns that come from our side and drugs that come from our side don't overwhelm so that the bullets are not flying so freely. there's more priority. so in the and we are talking both about home, personal responsibility, but we are also talking about pressure, social movement that transforms the system as a whole and that's a tree difficult thing to do that is what is required here. it's what is required. finland, for example, number one in the world. finland. why is finland number one in the world? because every child gets free health care country meals while they are at school to teach class remiss 14 and the devotee

trained teachers 80 and they tell the students every day whether it is true or not yorubaland coming your brilliant. that is what the well-to-do in america gets. they send their kids to school that has 14 in the class and the atoka every day that they're brilliant whether they are or not. but they've got money. [laughter] the top 1% in america has the same level of achievement of all of the students in finland but it's only when you enter this poverty and students of color that america becomes 25. that's what we are now. i'm sorry to go on for so long but this is such a powerful question. >> i just noticed this young man has a question. did you have a question?

[inaudible] >> we are blessed to have you year [inaudible] >> the question is -- you can jump in also [inaudible] i am wondering about the sensitivity, or the insensitivity of the african-americans as far as i know 1940 but say that asian communities of say harlem or detroit held as the

african-american community relation support the asian brothers and sisters as sensitive, were they more understanding, did they have any relations that they felt? they can't be racist because we have no power but in my journeys, i love my black people, i love them, but i know we have some issues with prejudice issues, just wondering how will we support the communities. >> that's a great question. thank you very much. >> you know, it's as cornell was

saying the only african-american intellectual leader to sign publicly that open letter from norman thomas the fdr protesting incarceration in concentration camps you find a little bit of resistance and a little bit of buying into the yellow peril and we knew we shouldn't trust of these people few and far between articles like the chicago defender more often than not there's some silence tried to talk with david lewis about this and the biographer was saying the naacp didn't want to be touch with the brush of antipatriotism so they are going to keep quiet. but it was incredible because when pearl harbor hits you get a lot of recordings of filipinos going down to the docks and beating that japanese and granted some of it was related to japan's's invasion but these

were filipino americans, japanese americans consider trying to shut your patriotism by putting on all i am a filipino or i am caribbean or chinese to differentiate themselves, which don't necessarily blame them for what you can see that already within the group its are aggregating and trying to separate. but i found very admirable was how many of these african american outlet for african-american newspapers in particular, and we know how important african-american newspapers are to the community but particularly for scholars like me they are always at this time they are employing japanese-americans to write off beds, report from can't, they were asked to guest of hit in the crisis. so that is actually where my title comes from is a man who was the head of the citizen which is a japanese-american

citizens crisis basically, the newspaper to the he was asked -- well, he writes about jim crow, so why excised his phrase. you see in los angeles for example the los angeles tribune run by an african-american woman over the california, again, the history of african-american women that haven't really been told, but they hire this very popular short story writer looking back now who grew up in california and was incarcerated in arizona, but they have these wonderful deletes going back and forth about how we going to build alliances, what about the elements in our communities that aren't going to get along, but you have seen this incredible conversation and dialogue through the newspapers coming and i have some because of the

diary where friends of kikuchi were coming down to the racetrack in san bruno it was a race track through his friends were coming down from the state went to college and sang one was named milton stewart and this is on national tv maybe there is a relative who came to him and said we know what you are going through. we are with you and we did see african-americans coming into the camps with japanese-americans to whom they were married. so there really was much more i think it and embrace even in comparison to other quote on quote asian american routes. >> it's fascinating how quickly how many christians in putting black christians support the cross under the flag dignifying

the truth and conditional loved ought to be cunning against the grain of every flag of for christians and there's a wonderful moment with a great julius caesar you know as the dancing preacher one of the greatest ever passed the pilgrim baptist church where thomas dorothy is playing the piano playing a favorite song jackson singing the lead in the choir. that is a serious church. then james cleveland would take it over after chicago and when he's in chicago he spends time with gcm often tells him not only come to the church but you can become a member. this is a church open to everybody. this is jim crow chicago said the church of segregated like

every other institution. but at the same time when you think about political resistance often say it's hard for me to conceive of how chicago is going to change. so i just have to be expedient in that regard. so he's wrestling with how he has political courage to relate to his spiritual strength and he's also one of the greatest artists in the history of the pulpit, and to have that conversation going on is very rich in this text because people need to know more. he's one of the most fascinating creatures. disconnect you raise the comment dillinger out wall street. [inaudible] the economy was going to

collapse. is that what you would have wanted to see? >> no, no, no pity if i wanted the banks to collapse but i didn't want the economy to collapse. all you need to do is to centralize the banks believe they took over the automobile industry. first thing you said is we have to change the contract. how do you change the contract? cut wages, cut the labor force, bring in the technology and i will give you money to save it and you have to kick out a ceo. the contracts are sacred which mean they still get their high level of compensation. leave them in trillions of dollars with no conditions. welfare, corporate socialism with no conditions make this too big to fail doesn't need to exist because if it's too big to fail you can't be countered so all you have to do is decentralize the banks.

look at the community and some barely making at. these big banks get zero interest on loans wouldn't it be nice if the students could get zero interest on loans? how come students can't put banks can? that shows you have the banks running things. i do not collapse. i want space accountability. but when barack obama came in and i supported him and still do as you know i just put pressure on him. i respect, protect and correct him. i'm against the white supremacist lies they tell about him. that's wrong. it's officious that they try to attack him. respect another human being when he cites with tim geithner come down on him how come you have $28 billion when it comes to homeowners who are under water but its $700 billion they need?

$28 billion in the face of 700 billion. but the bank of 16 trillion so far. it's oligarchic. it's plutocratic. it's the rule of the few and the powerful at the top and they've got both parties. democrats and republicans know that they are not saying much. but in that sense i support him critically but we have to tell the truth about him in terms of how the response could have been and should have been homeowners, workers and poverty rates now higher than 1960's. but i'm a christian it means something. but you do on the least of these you do unto me. to follow jesus is to love thy neighbor which means fight for justice. that is the calling. that's enough for anybody. love by enemy. you are going to need some help

but that is just my perspective. i can be wrong and so forth and so on but it's the pressure that you put on as part of our legacy because if the folks didn't do it, 150 years ago we wouldn't be here. the directive years ago we wouldn't be here. if we don't do it now you know what is going to happen to our children? it's already happening now. no vision. where there is no vision that's what we see. that's what our sisters loved and direct as a teacher she sees the young folk perishing but she knows she's got love and vision when she was coming along there's no way he's been to be president without convincing him he is somebody for loving himself, believing his off and then having this talent.

>> [inaudible] >> especially fascinating relationship to our japanese brothers. yeah. >> in 19,881st george bush and ronald reagan set in motion of all people of centrist now compared to other republicans that the preparation at that point was $20,000 to each japanese-american family, which if you think about that, you know, a lot of these folks lost fisheries, farms, their whole livelihood, their ability to learn and many of them young men then drafted out of the camp. that's crazy. you in prison my family and you're going to ask me to fight for your country and your democracy which i can't take part of. and so 20,000, amy - and 20,000

is a lot but it was just a gesture. in this time of model minority and two years after they are on the cover of "time" magazine it's almost like we put those people to rest we will keep them quiet by giving that 20,000 my feeling on reparations was the investment in education that we've been talking about. virus thinking throughout this past century when we are supposed to be the most civilized, we told the most humans in any century and we've been in a war in asia since the 1940's. you could include the philippines since the 1890's and we are in central asia now, so that a budget that's going to words the drones, why can't we give it to those kids on the south side of here in harlem and in the daily city, chinatown. so that's the way i see it because of your body is going to say there's going to be that

kind of dave chappelle parody of the reparations and if the decline to say that they're going to stereotype african-americans, and i think we can have a constructive conversation about where we would invest that money. >> i think for me preparations are fundamentally about justice, but justice is preceded by acknowledging the damage done and who is responsible to the u.s. slavery. 75 years under the u.s. constitution. the u.s. constitution as proslavery document and practice for 80 some years. >> it's just the truth. if you don't come to church with truth. it will rise again. so the question becomes you have to acknowledge the damage done

and then the reparations repair but we know the reparations itself can't get that the suffering because they got a million down at the bottom of the atlantic ocean you can't bring them back. you have schenker for 90 years and now we have the last 40 years in the hoods and the ghetto and they are economically abandoned on the surveillance and to the present industrial complex. to many wasted lives i don't care what color it is that it is black and brown. as i said before i would be concerned if it was white, red, brown, yellow, whenever it is a moral and spiritual question but you have to get folks to acknowledge the truth racism being so subtle and covert all at the same time so you have to

continue to try to put the pressure on and recognize take a brother mitt romney. he's part of the prosecutor group. this attack pushed out of his grandfather was pushed we're coming into mexico. but when he left mexico it came back to you talk with did he get? reparations. i don't like folks getting persecuted no matter what. when they come back begin preparations and talk about reparations we've got to point that hypocrisy out. i don't mind the mormons getting reparations, property was stolen. of course the fundamental

question as the precious indigenous brothers what kind of preparations they're going to get. when manhattan used to be their island, when american used to be their land. they don't have to be in the room for us to be hypersensitive to their suffering on moral and spiritual ground. and all the reparations in the world are not going to be sufficient but there is no acknowledgement because why? america won't acknowledge the crimes against humanity. this acknowledgment. tell the truth about it and then go on to the reservations we've still got in place in this treating children decently like black, brown, yellow, red my sister said she had a question when i first walked in and i didn't want to overlook you. >> [inaudible] very important issue. what i'm talking about is

dealing humiliation of wanting to have to have [inaudible] young children but this is now going to far. this has gone too far. definitely aimed at the room. now we're going to cut it up altogether. give a choice. what do you want? d1 this child that you're going to bring into the world you don't want, so forth, so on, guess what it's going to wind up in prison. i was very disturbed about that.

>> i would just say ditto. we have to highlight it, accent, fight in such a way that it's heard, again, not color. but it is primarily poor women we are talking about so there is a class dimension that's very poor. we have to stand with them and try to raise the issue and be part of organizations, networks, movements, trying to cast a limelight on the issue and then try to educate. >> i was struck by how the representatives in ohio who walked out of the chamber and then proposed the legislation what's good for the goose is good for the gander. if you're going to give minn viagra we are going to check it out. if you were going to have a chance vaginal inspection -- i have two daughters, i have a wife, really -- not that if i

didn't have the two daughters i wouldn't be on the side of the women, but i feel deeply invested that this is such an invasion of violation. and everyone -- there are people that take it as a joke. hit them where it hurts. i actually think that it's caught my attention and the attack on women just in general right now from the right with this young woman that rush limbaugh is attacking for being a slut, this attack on all colors and then susan komen coming out of planned parenthood. it is a disturbing trend from the party right that once government so small that they could crawl into your bedroom